Click here to view TV & Radio appearances for Shooting Stars.
In the memoirs of most professional athletes, the author’s grade school and high school years are burned through, like speed drills, in a chapter or two. The good stuff, it’s assumed, comes later: college and pro stardom, attended by the moral agony of trying to keep it real in the face of fat checks, eager girls, shoe contracts, tattoos, steroids and the rat-a-tat bee stings of talk radio. “Shooting Stars,” a new collaboration between LeBron James, probably the greatest basketball player alive, and Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights,” is a different kind of book. It avoids speaking about James’s professional career with the Cleveland Cavaliers (he was the National Basketball Association’s most valuable player last season) almost entirely. Instead “Shooting Stars” is a measured, modest book about four kids from Akron, Ohio, James among them, who became best friends off the court and a mighty force on it. The book, mostly told in James’s gentle first-person voice, follows his life and those of his three friends from their often troubled childhoods through the state and national championships they win for St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron. He was smart to hook up with Mr. Bissinger, who showed in “Friday Night Lights” that he writes about young men and sports as well as anyone alive. The narrator is King James himself. The writing is by Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer-winning former Inquirer staffer. Theirs makes for an intriguing pairing, and at first blush an unlikely one: an elite, cloud-hopping, rim-shaking, backboard-quaking, 6-foot-8 dunkateer, and an earthbound 5-foot-6 author whose first work, the seminal Friday Night Lights, has a shelf life that is the lustful envy of the rest of us hopefuls. But it works. They are unflinching and no one is spared, including King James. This is a coming-of-age tale, approached from a different angle, and deftly done. The reportage is thorough to a fare-thee-well, what you would expect from a seasoned veteran, and their overall collaboration makes for an engaging read. Autobiographies about 24-year-olds tend to be a little thin and forced. Save for the occasional tabloid-besotted child star, how many people that age can be said to have lived a full and interesting life worthy of public examination? This book, thankfully, isn't one of those, even though its co-author has packed a lot of eventful living into his 24 years. LeBron James, born to a 16-year-old single mother, has been an NBA most valuable player, a rookie of the year, an NBA Finals participant, a six-time All-Star, a two-time Olympian and one of the most prominent figures in American sports, all before he was old enough to rent a car in most states, let alone run for national office. And yet, this account of James' four years at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio, a collaboration by James and Buzz Bissinger -- LeBron's thoughts, Buzz's words -- depict him as a fairly normal 24-year-old, albeit an uncommonly self-aware one with an incredible amount of basketball talent and probably even more money. James credits those four years at "St. V" with making him the man he has become, on and off the court. The process is exhaustively detailed, enhanced by James' maturity and candor from six years' remove, and Bissinger's well-crafted writing providing context…A compelling story on and off the court.” Though there’s enough game action described to satisfy hardcore hoopsters, the book – co-authored with Pulitzer Prize winner Buzz Bissinger of Friday Night Lights fame – is really an extended and heartfelt thank you to all the people who helped LeBron negotiate the potential minefield of his youth. The group includes fellow players, AAU coaches, his high school coach, his mother of course and the family that took him in for a year during a particularly difficult time. A warm, thoughtful memoir by a young man who, one imagines, will never forget his humble origins. NBA superstar James and Vanity Fair contributor and acclaimed sportswriter Bissinger (Three Nights in August, 2005, etc.) profile James’s championship high-school basketball team…. The inspirational heart of the book is James and his teammates’ gutsy performance in the face of the tornado-like media frenzy. The co-authors dramatically re-create the minute-by-minute highlights of key games in St.V’s national-championship drive, but they also interject some serious social commentary on the vindictiveness, greed and exploitation that can infect the seemingly pristine world of amateur sports….A moving story about the double-edged sword of precocious athletic talent and the redemptive power of teamwork.
|
